I put none. If it came down to it, I think I could/would defeat most if not all the women I know in straight-up combat. That said, because I’m sort of pacifistic, and because I was raised to never hurt a woman, and because I could very well be over-confident in terms of my strength, skill, experience, and aggression, in a real-life fight, as opposed to a hypothetical one, I might be [del]stupid[/del] chivalrous enough to hold back. And while holding back, my female opponent might very well surprise the heck out of me. Probable? I really don’t know. Possible? Certainly.
As a woman and a current LEO, I go into work daily almost expecting to take down men much larger than myself. Like you said, skill, training, speed… And, if you don’t mind my saying so, a little bit of a “You’re going down whether you like it or not, and I’m the one taking you there.” attitude. 
I answered none. I’m larger than most women - just shy of two metres tall and weigh about a hundred kilograms - so if we discount my reluctance to attack someone smaller than me, I’d probably be okay. Another thing counting in my favour is that I don’t work out, haven’t seriously undertaken any martial arts since I was a kid, and have no military background. Ironically, this helps me here because I’m sure if I hung out in those circles I’d know more girls that could beat me up. 
I’m basically in Dinaroozie’s position, of being large and not knowing many women who work out a lot or do serious martial arts. (I know someone who does martial arts as an off-again on-again hobby, who ended up being slightly put out when I managed to get him on the ground via clumsily falling on him in a self-defense demonstration.)
I see martial arts as being more of a confidence booster than anything else. Which might help you in a fight. Then again, it also might not.
I’m big, strong and untrained, I know one women who was a martial arts student and a very aggressive person that I am pretty sure could kick my ass. I have never struck a woman in anger and will be happy if I never do.
This is a really good point. Strength and size can only go so far.
The easiest way to get an upset win is to get your opponent to take you lightly. I think most men would be vulnerable in that regard when faced with fighting a woman. And if a woman didn’t telegraph her intent to fight seriously, many men wouldn’t be prepared for the initial attack, expecting only an ineffective move. So for the average man, without prior knowledge that an all out fight was going to occur, the odds become more even when against the average woman.
None. Then again, I don’t know any guys who can take me; my wrapping loosens a bit when I’m threatened.
This is, of course, not to say that there couldn’t possibly be a women capable of besting me but, knowing my mental state during physical altercations, I sincerely hope I never have to experience that kind of unpleasantry.
I’m short for a guy (5’4") and I’ve never been in a fight. I’m not super athletic but I get exercise regularly. I really can’t say how many women could kick my ass, but I’d assume that some I know could.
I think a lot of the posters have underestimated women’s fighting ability and overestimated their own. I recognize that superior size and mass probably make a noticeable difference in who wins and that men tend to be bigger than women (but there’s clearly a lot of overlap in sizes), but I don’t think that means that women would never win. Or even that only a very few women would win.
I’m pretty sure any woman who can actually fight could take me out. I’m rather large, but I’ve never been able to fight worth anything. In school, I relied on my size to intimidate casual bullying, and self-deprecating humor in the rare times when something came up. But when I tried to fight with my cousin, who was a lot smaller than me, I couldn’t really hurt him, and his casual punches hurt me.
About the only way I could win is if I got in there first, got them down, and got away.
If that was the thread I’m thinking of, didn’t people have to repeatedly explain to you that a genital attack is A) not particularly easy to execute and land, especially if a person is consciously defending against it and B) not an instant-win debilitating death blow.
When I was in high school this kid (kid? I meant total asshole) surprised me with a knee to the crotch. Believe me, it HURT. I then proceeded to put the kid in headlock, wrestle him to the ground and I was choking the life out of the little shit when the gym teacher pulled me off him. For the next couple of hours I had a horrible throbbing pain in my genitals that seemed to shoot up all the way through my stomach.
If you’re in a fight for life and you see an opening for a nutshot, by all means go for it. It can’t hurt. But don’t go thinking you can bring some old school justice to those no good bikers in the local dive bar with your mysterious and frightening Nut-Shot-Fu.
Wait you did say healthy adults right? No way the women would break 100 victories. For one thing, the men, being healthy, would have the obvious strength advantage. Even if we discount that and go for skill alone, out of people selected at random, the men are far more likely to have some sort of training in hand to hand combat. Not that I think the women should be too bummed out about this. As far as I can tell, women are perfectly capable of operating things like firearms and fighter jets as well as men are, and I think those are far more valuable combat skills than being able to kill someone without using a weapon.
Good point. People seem to be acting like only women can use tactics considered “dirty fighting.” Men are just as capable of eye gouging, throat punching, and headbutting as girls are. And I’m under the impression that getting kicked in the vag hurts like hell too.
You don’t watch or participate in many combat sports like MMA, boxing, or wrestling do you? Weight class makes a huge difference. I remember the Roy Jones Jr. vs. John Ruiz fight. Jones was considered one of the best pound for pound fighters in the business. Jones was a light heavyweight, but he moved up to heavyweight to fight Ruiz. Jones was about 190, Ruiz was about 225. Jones won the fight by decision, then announced that he was never fighting in a heavier weight class again, because it was one of the hardest fights of his life. And that’s pretty much the best boxer in the world having difficulty with a man 30 pounds heavier than him. Now Ruiz was a very good boxer, but few would argue he possessed anything like the skill of Jones. Of course, it’s also important to remember that we are talking muscle weight here. Extra weight comprised of fat is generally speaking going to reduce your speed and stamina and make you a worse fighter.
But once again, very few fight to the death scenarios involve unarmed opponents. We are human beings fro Christ’s sake, pick up a fucking rock.
But Jones won. Ruiz’s size and strength didn’t do him any good. Boxing is exactly the sport I was referring to when I said the easiest way to get an upset win is to get your opponent to take you lightly. Michael Spinks defeated a larger Larry Holmes, Evander Holyfield knocked out the bigger Buster Douglas, Jack Dempsey knocked out the much larger Jess Willard. Brock Lesnar lost twice to smaller men in the UFC. That’s just one reason size and strength only go so far. And in organized sports, you know your opponent will go all out against you at the start. A man fighting a woman may not know the woman will do that, or believe he can be passive and withstand anything the woman can deliver, giving her an immediate advantage if she has enough skill. Size and strength are no guarantee of victory.
I wasn’t going to post until I read this. I have a classmate from high school, DebbieM who studied martial arts (whatever Bruce Lee did) and still does IIRC.
She is about 5’ 6" and built more along the lines of a stocky guy and is very strong from working out.
As mentioned in some of the above posts, these things may or may not make a difference. BUT… Debbie was full of ATTITUDE and nothing but ATTITUDE. I firmly believe that she passed ATTITUDE on every bathroom visit. When she fought, which was often, you can bet she’d win. I don’t remember her ever losing a fight. She seemed to go into it like her purpose in life and entire reason for existance was to ram her fist down your throat and rip out your very soul as well as your asshole and slashing everything else on the way down and on the way out.
I saw her attack this other girl so hard and so fast that the girl was hit at least 10 times before she could fall to the ground. The girl did initiate the fight but never got a hand on Debbie. And just to drive the point home, Debbie pulled her up by her hair, dragged her outside and smashed the girl’s face repeatedly into the girl’s car fender until she was limp and bloody and the car had to go to the body shop for repair. Leaving the girl in a heap on the ground, Debbie calmly walked inside to a phone and called her lawyer who was on retainer.
Debbie was NOT a punk by any means but if you wanted a definition of ATTITUDE she was always ready and happy to deliver.
She scared me then and still does now! :eek:
I voted none. I’ve never been in a real ‘fight’ where only one of us will be standing at the end, but I’ve been in highschool skirmishes and a couple of bar fights against men my own age and size where the attacker tried to put me down for the count. They never really landed a hit, and I never attempted to hit them, I just deflected the hits until someone else pulled the attacker away (BTW - it takes a while sometimes, spectators like to watch a fight). I don’t even remember how I do it or what exactly happens, instinct and adrenaline just take over. One time I ended up with a small cut around my eye and an inflamed (red) eyeball - he must have got one hit partially through - but I only noticed that the next day. The other times I was completely uninjured.
As I say, my experience is very limited, but I can’t imagine any woman I know besting me in hand to hand combat. The only exception I can think of are really obese women - I know from wrestling obese guys in high school that there is way more power in those bodies than one might think. But even still, hand to hand style, they’d get exhausted sooner than I would just by moving around, so as long as they didn’t get a very lucky hit that incapacitated me, I’d win.
I can think of a few that’d probably kick ass and chew bubblegum. However, it would take a lot to get them to actually fight me, most women I know are pretty mellow and pacifist.
So is the woman allowed to cry when things are going bad, like in an argument?
None personally. I have met a few women in tournaments and in guest lectures in my martial arts classes that certainly could get the job done though. In our classes I was commonly used as an example of the physical differences when sparring for some of the female students. Since I’m somewhat short and of average weight for a male, (5’7, 155lbs) I didn’t have the obvious gigantic size advantage. Many of our students were quite surprised when the blows they would use to take out a fellow female opponent bounced off me completely. Likewise, Sensei would occasionally bring in a well skilled female to teach the men a lesson about being overconfident.
In my personal circle of friends though,* I am Batman*.